Slow cooking: Shoulder of Lamb from the Aga

An Aga cooker is the best oven for slow cooking: preparing meat at a low temperature. As the temperature in the cooking oven is 80 to 100º Celsius, it is perfect for cooking a large piece of meat very slowly. Last week I obtained a lovely piece of lamb meat, a shoulder weighing well over a kilogram. Prepared the slow cooking way it tasted delicious!

Ingredients:
- a shoulder of lamb
- olive oil
- a few tomatoes
- a few branches of rosemary
- 5 to 10 cloves of garlic
- 5 to 10 shallots
- 2 glasses of red wine
- pepper and salt

Method:
I used a baking tin for preparing this dish. Heat the tin on the simmering plate and splash generously olive oil in it. Pepper and salt the meat and let it simmer in the tin for about half an hour. Turn the meat over a few times. In the meanwhile clean and cut the shallots and the garlic in large pieces. Add them and transfer the meat to the baking oven for at least half an hour for browning, Take it out a few times for turning the meat over. When the meat has turned brown enough, take it out and place it on the simmering plate again. Add the cleaned and cut tomatoes, the rosemary and the red wine.

When it comes to the boil, cover the tin with aluminium foil and place it low in the cooking oven, where the temperature is lowest. Let it 'slow cook' for a couple of hours, taking it out for turning the meat a few times. Serve with bread (pain rustique for instance) or baked potatoes.

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Chicken & Ratatouille (the Spanish way)

This recipe I learned from my dear friends, Ronald and Monica, when we were spending a week with them in their house in Colmenar, near Malaga. We went to the market and we bought for a few euro's lots of ugly (but delicious!) tomatoes, aubergines, peppers and courgettes. And we also bought a fat chicken (it was probably a rooster) and when we got home, they prepared a delicious meal. And so easy!
This is the way I make it in my AGA.

Ingredients:
- a mature chicken, chopped in large pieces
- 2 ounces cubes of bacon
- 1 courgette
- 1 aubergine
- 2 large onions
- 20(!) cloves of garlic
- 5 or 6 large beefy tomatoes
- 3 peppers (green, yellow and red)
- a few rosemary-twigs
- some oregano
- pepper and salt
- olive-oil

Preparation:
Put the chicken (peppered and salted) in a roasting-pan and cover it with al the coarsely chopped vegetables and the bacon. Then add the herbs and splash generously olive-oil over it.
Now it is ready for the baking-oven. Leave it there for a few hours and take it out to re-arrange the vegetables. After about 4 hours your meal is ready. Great with home-made spelt bread!